I
have been quilting since I was a child in the 1960's! I didn't make
alot of quilts though until after 1986 when I bought my first rotary
cutter, mat and ruler. Now I make quilts to donate to charity -- about
10 a year. I think 400 quilts would be a reasonable estimate for all
those years...

What is amazing to me, she lives about 30 minutes from my In-Laws that I'm taking the kids to. So I get to personally deliver the goodies!! How many of us get that chance? And 400 quilts, I can only hope that I will one day come close to that number.

Friday, 29 June 2012

Good Evening/Morning All!
My son started summer vacation today and it was an interesting day. We had a huge fight early in the morning and then spent the rest of the morning cuddling on the couch between my loads of laundry. Hoping we can continue with the cuddling, not the fighting.

How about you, do you have children on vacation? Are you dreading it or looking forward to it?

We are going to be taking our kids to my in-laws next week for a few weeks. They live about a 13 hour drive away from us. It will be the first time our kids are away from us for more than overnight. It was a really hard decision for us. The kiddies are 5 and 3. I'll be driving them down myself, stay for a few days, go shopping in the States, and then come home.

I'm gonna be using the time without the kids to get caught up on estate stuff. I need to deal with Child Maintenance, Public Trustee, Canadian Lawyer, States Lawyer, Land Titles, Banks, and the list goes on..... Hoping Hubby will use the time to finish basement renovations and house maintenance. We are also going to be painting the kids rooms and updating the styles.

On to the quilting...

When adding the binding to the wall hanging for the Twin's room, I discovered 2 things that made putting the binding on easier. Here are the pictures illustrating what I found:

First need to show the panel. :)

When turning the corner using the mitering method, I used to squish up the fabric tight to the needle. Many times the fabric would get jammed and stitch in place. I would have to fight to get it moving forward. Look very closely right in front of needle to see the bunch.

I learned to give the fabric breathing room. Worked like a charm. Moved forward with no issues. Boy was I HAPPY when I figured this out. I hate when the fabric gets stuck.

Do you ever take a picture and forget why? That's what happened with this picture LOL.

And I even took 2 with slightly different angles.

My second Aha moment was finishing the binding. I machine sew my binding ends together before completely attaching the binding to the quilt. A few times, I sewed the strips together incorrectly and would have to rip it out and try to figure it out again. Or I would spend a lot of time putting in lots of pins to figure out how to attach the strips together. The further apart my binding projects the longer it would take me to figure out.

I discovered: Open both strips and mark a diagonal line going the same direction on the wrong side of both strips. The left side will end/start on the bottom corner and the right side with end/start with the top corner. Place right side together matching up the lines, you will have a perfect mitered beginning/ending to your binding.

Hope this makes sense to you, but please ask questions if I wasn't clear enough.

Have you had AHA moments when attaching binding? If so, I would love to hear about yours.

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I'm on vacation in Mexico. Sad as its our last night. Every day I've walked over these floor tiles. I've noticed how pretty they are but not in the quilting world until tonight. I can't believe its taken me this long to see a quilt. I started in front of my room and walked to the lobby. Here are the pictures of the floor.
Well I can't figure out how to add pictures on my IPad. Sorry to keep you in suspense until I can figure this out.
Talk soon from Canada.
Vicky K

Friday, 1 June 2012

Good Morning All
How's your morning so far? Mine is going okay. I have a very busy day but I won't have kids today, so I should accomplish a lot. Just not a lot of Quilty stuff. I have to show our rental an hour away to 3 families. Hope to be successful today! I've showed the house to 5 families already and no grabs. LOL.
I'm also gonna try to tackle some of the paperwork that is covering my desk.

Today I'm gonna show you my new storage system for my scraps. I like it so far, but haven't had much time to use it yet. I just filled it.

This is how I used to store my scraps originally:

I believe I had 12 of those bins.
I would always see this colorful storage system in Michaels and think to myself
"Self, you really need this. Its so pretty! But where could you use it? hmmmm"
Then finally I convinced myself that it can fit under my ironing/cutting table. Still didn't know what I would put in it but I bought it anyways.
Wellllll, it doesn't fit under my table. It makes the table just a tad too high to be comfortable ironing or cutting. But it does fit nicely between my ironing table and my other table.

On the top of the stand, in the clear tub, I have my crumb blocks I've been using as leaders and enders. The scraps I still have to cut into my scrap system are stuffed into the purple basket.

Here is a close up of some of my labels for my scrap system.

And these are my empty tubs. Hmmmm what can I fill these with?? LOL

Do you like to organize? Do you change your way of organizing or are you happy enough with the first attempt? I feel like I'm always changing the way I store things. Michaels and IKEA are BAD for me. :)